by Lyle Howard
The Rosalita rolled with the sea, cutting steadily through the void, tracking the faint green target on the edge of their radar. After years of drunken sea tales of a mysterious ship that only appeared at night and vanished at first light, and fruitless searches for this ocean phantom, perhaps the mythological ship was finally going to reveal herself. “Any estimate of her size yet?” The younger brother asked, continuing to scan the pitch dark horizon through his night-vision goggles.
Pedro, who was deftly manning the throttles and wheel, shrugged his shoulders. “I won’t know until we get closer. It could be anything. It could just be a freighter like every other time we thought it was her. I’ve switched the radar back to the five mile range, but I still have no sense of scale. The computer database is searching, so I know this isn’t some glitch in the program.” Pedro tapped at the radar screen with his finger in frustration. “I just don’t understand why it can’t identify….”
Gallinas’ words were cut off in his throat as a bright green oblong shape suddenly filled half the radar screen. The colossal vessel seemed to materialize out of nowhere. She burst through the curtain of gloom, spewing seawater from her bow like a rabid dog foaming at the mouth. The nose of the ship rose nearly sixty feet out of the water and sliced through the waves like a buzz saw. The formidable Rosalita was dwarfed by the enormity of the fast-approaching behemoth.
It took Gallinas’ quickest reflexes to slam the steering wheel hard to port and jam the throttles forward to avoid being rammed by the gargantuan ship. The three mercenaries sitting in the stern of the Rosalita were flung to the opposite side of the boat and clutched wildly for any sort of handhold as the speedboat nearly went vertical to avoid being cut in half.
“Hang on!” Gallinas screamed. She was immense, he thought. At least three hundred feet stem to stern and, like the Rosalita, swathed in dark paint. Gallinas adjusted his night-vision goggles to scrutinize the ship…
There was a helipad astern with a Bell 206 Jet Ranger helicopter secured to its deck with tie down straps. The bridge climbed another two levels from mid-ships, equipped with a full weather and navigational array. He figured this yacht had to cost in the millions, and it was undoubtedly state of the art. But Gallinas’s aesthetic appreciation soon gave way to his professional cynicism. There were no running lights, no light from her portholes, not even a glimmer from the bridge. Every ship had to display running lights. It was international law. This desire for stealth concerned him more than anything else.
The Rosalita performed like a champion. Gallinas pulled back on the dual throttles and opened a wider distance between the two ships. Once the larger vessel was ahead of them, Gallinas swung the boat gently to port and took up a position in the middle of the larger ship’s churning wake.
In the hazy green tint of Galinas’s goggles, he pointed at the ship’s stern and muttered aloud the single word etched in dark letters on the huge vessel’s transom…
“Nocturne.”
Two
The three-pronged grappling hook caught on the first attempt. Manuel Salazar, the most nimble of the bandits, climbed to the bow of the Rosalita and tied the end of the rope to one of the forward cleats. “The rope ladder won’t reach,” he said, as he staggered his way back to the Gallinas brothers, swaying at the controls. “She’s sitting too high in the water. I’ll climb the rope and make my way down to that starboard entry hatch,” he said, pointing up to the side of the Nocturne. “The ladder should be plenty long enough from there.”
Galinas shifted the throttles to neutral position, allowing the Rosalita to be towed along by the more powerful ship.
“Give me five minutes once I get over her railing,” Salazar instructed. “Be ready to go!”
The small band of mercenaries nodded as Salazar began pulling himself across the tether to the Nocturne. Once he was halfway between the two ships, the others began taking a quick inventory of their supplies. Each man was an expert in his own specific field. Victor Montoto was the ordnance expert, but as he rummaged inside his backpack, he was concerned that he didn’t have enough C-4 to scuttle a ship of this size.
Diego Torres was the close arms expert. His stock of various blades was impressive, to say the least, but all the knives in the world might not fend off a crew large enough to maintain a ship of this size.
The minutes passed as the crew finished their preparations.
Pedro Gallinas tapped his watch and looked at his brother. “Seven minutes…” He whispered warily. “Salazar is better than this. It’s been too long.”
The younger Galinas brother jerked the slide of his pistol, loading a round into the chamber. “Give him three more minutes. It’s a big ship…easy to get lost in.”
Two stories above them, the side hatchway suddenly slid open. Through the portal a flashlight blinked on and off as the rope ladder cascaded down the side of the ship.
“See, Pedro?” The younger brother grinned, as he held out a fist for his brother to bump. “You worry too much.”
Three
In less than two minutes, all five men were aboard, leaving the Rosalita tethered behind and bobbing in the Nocturne’s wake. As the group tried to get their bearings, each man adjusted the headset they wore, equipped with a tiny L.E.D. light which surrounded them in a ten foot cone of soft white radiance.
“Where’s Salazar?” Montoto softly asked, as he took up the lead. “Why isn’t he here? Where would he have gone?”
Four circles of light swept the deserted and seemingly endless passageway in different directions, trying to track down their missing comrade. If the Nocturne was to be defined by this single hallway, then the ship appeared to have a split personality. Opulent on the exterior, but sparsely decorated within.
Estaban tapped his older brother on the shoulder. “What do you want to do, Pedro?” He whispered, while pressing the button on his headset so each of the soldiers could hear. “Do we abort? What about Salazar? Do we go after him?”
Pedro Gallinas’s face was hit simultaneously with three beams of light as each soldier looked at him for the solution. He put up a hand as if to say, hold on a minute. “Salazar?” He called out softly into his mouthpiece. “Answer me, Salazar?” He waited. They all waited, but their earpieces sizzled with silence.
“I don’t like this, Pedro,” Estaban admitted. “This ship feels like death. No running lights. No signs of life. And now, Salazar’s gone missing. Something is wrong here. I say we cut and run!”
Pedro Gallinas was adamant. After years of searching, he was actually standing aboard the ship that had only been whispered about after long nights of heavy intoxication. But this was no fantasy …this was real! Wood and metal, brass and fabric…he could reach out and physically touch it. This was no apparition! He had not come this far to turn back now and become one of those people who everyone would look at as if he were loco. He needed proof of her existence! The riches that a ship this opulent possessed were probably too extensive for the Rosalita to haul. They would have to be very selective of what they robbed.
“And leave Salazar behind? No, we stay,” he announced, matter-of-factly. “He is onboard somewhere. We’ll find him. We’ll split up, and stay in touch. If one of us locates Manuel, tell him we will all rendezvous back at this spot in thirty minutes. No matter what we’ve found.”
They all spontaneously synchronized their watches.
Pedro Gallinas’ headlight illuminated each man one by one. “Listen… all of you… It is obvious that we won’t be able to take everything with us, so we must be selective in our choices. Take notes on the most valuable items you find and mark their location. We will go back together and collect them once we join back up.”
The interior of the Nocturne was as stagnant as an abandoned basement. The only audible sounds came from the outside world… the steady anger of the restless ocean through the open hatchway. Estaban Gallinas looked toward the open
portal and then at the other two soldiers. They all knew what the younger brother was thinking, and somewhere in the back of their collective minds they all shared his same instinct. Escape… now!
“And if we run into interference?” Montoto finally asked.
Pedro Gallinas‘ eyes narrowed and his voice never wavered. “Then we all do what we do best!”
Four
Victor Montoto spoke with a slight stutter, which was why he chose his words carefully and used them sparingly. This was what he considered his only flaw. Of the five men set to plunder the Nocturne, he was the playboy of the group. Women found his silence mysterious, while men found it menacing. All but a handful of people knew that the handsome features masked behind the dark makeup belied a very sadistic temperament and a fascination from childhood with fire, explosions, and the mayhem that ensued from both.
Slowly, Montoto inched his way down an unfamiliar passageway, with the narrow beam from his headlamp revealing very little. As the circle of light swept back and forth ahead of him, the desolation of the ship really surprised him. There were no pictures adorning the bulkheads, no chairs or tables that he could see. The corridor’s only remarkable feature was the crimson red carpeting that appeared to floor the entire deck.
Montoto suddenly stopped short and held his breath when he thought he saw a shadow flutter through the edge of his light. The wraith made no sound. He waited, not breathing… listening. Slowly and deliberately he shifted into a shooting stance and raised his pistol into the light at eye level. More comfortable with creating a homemade pipe bomb than firing a gun, he kept the barrel focused at the center of the beam. This would prove to be a fatal mistake.
The assailant struck from behind, wrapping one arm around Montoto’s shoulders and the other across his face. Without hesitation his head was twisted in the opposite direction of his body, snapping his neck and spine. His trigger finger involuntarily twitched, sending a salvo of bullets into the empty corridor. With minimal effort and flawless efficiency, his lifeless body was whisked away into the darkness.
Five
Light from his headset glinted off the two eight inch blades Diego Torres held before him. After making his way up one deck, Torres came to a stop at the end of yet another long passageway. Doors with ornate gold handles lined each side of the corridor, reminding him of the numerous foreign palaces he had already plundered as a soldier for hire in the Far East.
Torres went wherever he was needed, but for the last three years since he had teamed up with the Gallinas Brothers, he no longer felt the inclination to wholesale his particular set of skills. His father, being a long time circus performer on the European circuit, had trained him in the fine art of wielding and throwing knives. By the time he was in his teens, the student had surpassed the master, with Diego being able to split an apple in midair from nearly fifty feet away. The circus life was not for him, though. His skills were better suited to a more adventurous and prosperous life.
Each door handle he jiggled silently failed to budge. He was halfway down the corridor when he realized something very peculiar. With the hundreds of staterooms and equipment rooms on this massive vessel, there were no signs or markings anywhere to be seen. No way to differentiate one location from another without memorization or perhaps a diagram. Very strange.
Suddenly… there was movement…
There… ahead on the left… behind the next door. He definitely heard something move or shift behind it. Not wanting to sheath either weapon, he decided to use his right foot to test the handle. The beam from his headlight tightened on the lever as the heel of his boot forced down the bar. The door flew open and Diego lunged inside with both blades slashing the air in defensive figure eights. A shadow flitted through his light, followed by the most horrendous agony he had ever felt.
He looked down at his right arm only to witness that his hand was missing, severed cleanly at the wrist. Blood sprayed around the cabin as he let go of the other blade and collapsed to his knees, frantically attempting to stem the torrent pumping out of his amputated wrist.
A single scream pierced the air. Just one. Then there was a nauseating crunch as the final death blow was dealt, and Torres’ still twitching body was whisked away into the shadows.
Six
There was no way in hell they were going their separate ways. Not after hearing the scream and the chorus of gunshots. “What do we do?” Estaban asked his older brother.
The barren passageway in which the two brothers stood smelled of salt air from the open hatch. Pedro Gallinas walked over to the portal and looked down at the Rosalita. She was still attached to the grappling rope and bobbed in the darkness alongside the Nocturne. Only twenty minutes had passed since the five soldiers had breached her, but it felt like an eternity. The decisions that he would have to make in the next few seconds would alter their lives forever.
The older Gallinas brother stepped back from the only opening that lead to freedom and drew his pistol from its holster. “We told them half an hour and we will give them half an hour.”
Estaban Gallinas did not share the same sense of loyalty as his older brother. These were cutthroats, criminals, deviants each in their own fashion. He owed nothing to them. He knew damned well that if the situations were reversed, they wouldn’t hesitate to abandon him. “So, what do we do for ten minutes, Pedro? Just stand here and do nothing?”
“Do you want to go look for them?” His older brother inquired, raising a skeptical eyebrow.
Estaban grimaced as he looked down at his watch. “No, we can wait.”
As they paced the passageway in different directions, the lights from their headsets danced off the barren walls and deck. “Why is a ship this decadent lacking any style or furnishings?” Estaban asked, loud enough for his brother to hear.
Pedro Gallinas looked up at the ceiling, letting the beam illuminate nothing but a smooth steel surface. “This is just the gangway, Estaban. With access to the sea air, they probably don’t want valuables kept where the corrosive salt air can damage them.”
Estaban shook his head. “But nothing, Pedro? No paintings? No curtains? No photographs? No pottery or sculptures? Something isn’t right here. You know it and I know it.”
Pedro walked back to where his brother was standing tapping his right foot nervously. “So what do you want to do, little brother? Leave our men behind? Then what becomes of us? How do we ever recruit another crew if we suddenly have the reputation of being cowards?” He put his hands on his brother’s shoulders. “Now get hold of yourself. It sounds like a few of them have met some resistance, but there’s nothing, and I mean nothing, that these guys can’t handle…”
Moving from left to right, a shadow streaked through the beam cast by Estaban’s headlight. “What the hell was that? Did you see it?”
Pedro Gallinas raised his pistol and his finger to his mouth to quiet him. Both brothers went silent. Even though both brothers were sweating profusely, they felt a frosty shiver shroud them like they had both just taken the ice bucket challenge.
Again, there was a glimpse of something that stayed just beyond the reach of their lights. Pedro fired once into the darkness. The bullet sparked as it hit the steel bulkhead at the far end of the passageway striking nothing in its path.
The phantom shape was on Estaban’s side now, staying hidden just beyond the edge of his headlamp. Pedro blindly shot again, barely missing his brother’s head. For the second time, the bullet hit nothing but steel bulkhead.
Estaban stared at his older brother not even concerned that he had just come mere inches from having his brains blown out. “Screw the ten minutes,” he said to his older brother. “You can stay if you want to, Pedro, but I’m getting the hell off this ship!”
With still no reply from anyone on his team, and much to Pedro’s regret, he chose survival over fortune.
The Gallinas brothers were down the rope ladder
in seconds, taking two rungs at a time. Once onboard the Rosalita, Pedro yelled to his brother. “Cut the line!”
Estaban didn’t have to be told twice; he pulled out a blade he kept sheathed around his ankle and with one swift thrust cleanly sliced through the rope as Pedro gunned Rosalita’s twin engines. The two men breathed a sigh of relief as their speedboat began to open the distance from the Nocturne.
“Are you over it now?” Estaban asked, as he shouldered past his older brother, standing at the helm. “Are you finally over your obsession with that ship? Es el Diablo!”
A million thoughts were racing through Pedro Gallinas’s mind. The least of which was his fixation on the mysterious vessel and what he thought they saw. No one would ever believe them. How would he explain his missing crew? What credible excuse could he come up with for their disappearance? They were probably better off never mentioning this night again, but there would be questions. He turned the Rosalita southeast and headed home toward Andros Town.
The warm sea air was like a soothing elixir blowing through his hair, drying the perspiration on his forehead. The Nocturne was nothing more than a miniscule blip on the edge of the radar screen when his brother called out to him.
The younger Gallinas brother was hunched over a dark canvas bag lying on the deck. “Pedro, why would Montoto’s backpack still be on the boat? Didn’t he have it with him?”
Suddenly Pedro Gallinas’s hands began shaking uncontrollably on the steering wheel. “Don’t open it!” He yelled, over Rosalita’s roaring engines. But it was too late.
Estaban Gallinas stared down at the satchel full of C-4 explosives and the digital timer that had been attached and activated. The blinking red numbers were counting down and now read… 00:01
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